Chapter 11
THERMAL TRANSFER
LILA
“True crime podcasts,” Theo scoffs once we’re back in our room. “Fat chance that’s what the fridge has been picking up on.”
I hum in agreement.
When I can’t sleep, I usually put on a similar podcast.
One of those investigative ones where some guy with a soothing cadence digs into a decades-old murder in a small town no one’s ever heard of.
Right now it’s a case out of Libby, Montana, and I’m completely hooked.
Unfortunately, I usually fall asleep somewhere between “previously on” and “you won’t believe what we found in the creek”, so I have a lot of catching up to do once we’re finished with all this here.
I don’t know what it is about investigative podcasters. They’re basically professional busybodies with expensive microphones, and I love them for it. They can’t let things go, even when everyone tells them to stop digging.
It’s kind of what Theo and I are doing, just with sponsorships and less emotional damage.
The numerous shocks of the day twist through my mind as I brush my teeth and towel dry my hair.
The mirror is fogged from the heat of my bath, a half-hearted attempt to thaw my entire being and relax muscles that refused to loosen.
Theo was right about the horseback riding leaving me sore, but I’ll die before admitting that to him.
I catch my reflection only long enough to be reminded what exhaustion looks like when it wins.
By the time I come out of the bathroom, Theo’s already in bed. He’s on his side, glasses settled on his nose, eyes moving steadily over the pages of a book. The lamplight catches in his hair and traces the sharp lines of concentration across his face.
I twist my head to the side to take a peek at the title of the book he’s holding.
Of course he’s reading about forensic taphonomy.
Of course he looks good doing it.
I have the brief, slightly deranged thought to take a picture. Because Serena would fall in love on the spot. Not because I want to make it the wallpaper on my phone.
I hover near the foot of the bed, not ready to relax. Or, unable to rather.
Theo glances up, eyes following me for half a second before he shuts the book and reaches for the lamp.
He pauses before pulling the string and notes, “You’re doing that thing where you stare into the middle distance and plot your own downfall,” he says, then after a beat adds, “Or mine.”
I scrunch my face, annoyed. “That is not a thing I do.”
He glares like he doesn’t agree with me but isn’t going to make it a thing.
The light clicks off, and darkness swallows the space between us.
I crawl under the blanket, muscles still twitching with residual tension my body has decided it would not like to release.
“Lila,” he says after a minute, not a question this time. Just my name, rough enough to make me look toward the sound of his voice in the dark. He sounds almost as wrung out as I feel.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to hold your breath around me.” It’s simple. Soft. Unfairly disarming.
I swallow hard, and when I exhale, the sound gives me away.
I was definitely holding my breath.
This day has just been so much. It feels like a week has passed with all the things we’ve discovered.
I pull the blanket tighter around myself.
Maybe I should pull out my phone and put on a podcast now. Focus on someone else’s murder problems.
I curl onto my side and wedge my hands between my knees, trying to trap some warmth, but my fingers stay numb and useless. I know I should sleep. I need to sleep. But my body isn’t listening. It’s stuck in this wired, restless limbo.
It’s always like this. Most nights, anyway. Restless, longing, something unsettled inside me that no amount of exhaustion short of total body shutdown can override.
It’s worse when the day has been too loud, too full of things that poke at the raw parts of me. Today was one of those days.
And it’s worse because I’m not alone, and there’s nowhere I can hide from Theo’s too-perceptive eyes.
He’s right there on the other side of the bed. Too far to touch, but close enough to make my emotions feel like a living, breathing thing. Palpable. Obvious.
I shift, trying to get comfortable, but the bed feels too big, too empty, too full, too much. I swear I can hear my own heartbeat, steady, stubborn, sad.
I squeeze my eyes shut and tell myself it’s fine. I’m used to this. It’s not a big deal.
Just pretend his aggressive attention to detail doesn’t notice you’re three seconds from imploding.
Pretend you’re alone, pretend he isn’t there, and that you don’t want to be held by him because it might fix this for once, even if temporarily. Great. Fantastic. Losing it completely.
But my body isn’t buying it. It’s restless and uncooperative, apparently convinced that wanting things I can’t have is a full-time job. A touch that isn’t coming. Warmth that hasn’t existed since Laurel.
I exhale, sharp and shallow, and yank the blanket higher over my shoulders, stretch my leg out, slow and aimless. My foot slides against his calf. A touch of skin so light I can almost pretend it didn’t happen.
I wait for sleep to kick in. For my brain to stop chasing its own tail. For something, anything, resembling peace.
The mattress shifts, the unmistakable weight of him turning toward me.
His knee slots neatly into the crook of mine, a point of contact so steady it feels deliberate.
I don’t move. Don’t turn my head to look at him.
One second passes. Then another.
I’m just about to say something reckless rather than sit in this anxiety-ridden in-between when the bed dips again and Theo’s big hand wraps around my middle, pulling my body flush against his.
“What are you doing?” Panic swells inside me, mixed with something warmer, hungrier. Because whatever I expected, it wasn’t this.
“Making poor decisions,” he says, the words come out hoarse. “You’re welcome to stop me.”
I should. I don’t.
“Theo…” I say his name like it’s supposed to clarify something, but my brain’s static and my body’s staging a coup.
“Pretend I’m conducting an experiment,” he pulls me in closer, a punctuation to the end of his sentence. “Testing a hypothesis about proximity and body heat.”
His body is a furnace against my too-cold skin.
All at once I am warm, overwhelmed, thoughtless.
And I guess that was the whole point?
“I thought we had a two foot buffer zone rule?” I yawn, already sinking into him.
He makes a sound that is half scoff, half laugh, and obliterates any last thought I had about him disliking me. “You were shivering. I’m a solution-oriented person.”
“Congratulations,” I mutter. “You can add ‘human space heater’ to your CV.”
His body rumbles with a laugh, and the movement sends a ripple through me—small, involuntary.
He presses his thumb into the muscle at my hip, like he’s confirming a theory. I jolt at the intrusion. “You’re sore,” not a question, just data collected and filed. “Pretty sure I predicted this exact outcome.”
I make a noise that’s supposed to sound dismissive and fails spectacularly. “I’m fine.”
He hums that knowing sound that usually precedes him proving a point. “That’s an objectively false statement.”
“Theo—”
“Roll over.”
I blink at the wall. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not exactly projecting ‘deep REM potential’ right now.” His tone is easy, clinical, like this is a practical suggestion and not an act of emotional warfare.
“I’ll survive,” I say. “Statistically speaking, no one’s ever died of sore adductors.”
“You’re not fooling anyone. Least of all me. Though I’ll give you credit for the data-driven defense.”
I twist enough to look at him, and he’s smirking in the dim light—just barely—but his eyes are soft, not teasing so much as patient. Waiting.
His hand tightens at my hip, and a sound escapes before I can stop it—a low, painful groan that earns me what’s definitely an I told you so look.
“Come on,” he says, undaunted and with zero sympathy. “I promise to stay away from the adductors and stick to non erogenous zones.”
I roll my eyes at that.
Maybe it’s the warmth, or the exhaustion, or the way his voice dips into a register my sanity has no defense against, but I turn over onto my stomach.
He starts with my shoulders, thumbs pressing into muscles that haven't unclenched since we got here. The pressure isn’t gentle, but it’s controlled—just enough to toe the line between pain and release.
“You’re holding half your stress right here,” his fingers dent my traps on either side.
“Only half?”
His laugh is pleasantly distracting.
My muscles melt under his touch. My pulse finds a new rhythm. I’m not used to being touched like this—with intent, but without demand. It feels a little too good. I breathe through it anyway, because I can’t think of a single reason to ask him to stop.
I’m too aware of everything: the rhythm of his breathing, the press of his fingertips, the faint pull of fabric when I move. The way I wish there was no fabric between us. The room feels warmer with every pass.
“Better?” he asks.
“That depends,” I manage. “Are we grading on a curve?”
His hand drifts lower, the movements turning less careful, the pressure shifting into something firmer, his focus changing from technique to pure impulse. “You tell me.”
My body betrays me in real time, my vocal cords apparently deciding to freelance without permission.
I stiffen, half-convinced I’ve crossed some invisible line with my unintentionally sexual noises.
“You’re still so tense,” he murmurs.
“I’m a tense person.”
“Understatement.” He pauses just long enough for me to wonder what he’s thinking.
“Take off the sweatshirt,” he suggests, so simply. “You’ll feel it more.”
I freeze. “That’s forward, Professor Grayson.” I say it like a joke, but my pulse swishes loudly in my ears. “I’m not wearing anything underneath.”
“Noted.” He releases his own broken exhale, and I appreciate the implications of that.
This entire scenario should feel awkward. It doesn’t.
With Theo, I’m not sure it ever could.